“You’re saying,” I whispered, nearly tripping over my syllables, “that Sol paid my way here so . . . he could kill me?”
“Zephyr and I only figured out after the fact. Z’s dad had to put in a lot more cash to grease the rest of the board. They were pissed when they heard you were coming.”
“Why?”
“They saw the writing on the wall, a Stamos and a Williams paying to bring Harry Quinn’s only kid to Stormcloud. Whatever came of that would not be good.”
“I don’t get it, though. Sol paid all that money to get me here. . . . Why am I still alive?”
Arvo shrugged as blithely as if I’d asked what they were serving for supper.
“Sol still hates you,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the shit he’s said about you and your father. Maybe he’ll kill you tonight. Maybe next week. Maybe he has something worse in mind. Z’s gone for a few more weeks. Let me ask you this: have you been alone with Sol recently?”
I didn’t reply, but my mind went back to two weeks ago when Sol had shown up at my door, bloody and seemingly frightened. I’d spent the whole night with him alone. It was impossible to think of him with distrust. He just . . . seemed to be completely open with me. I wasn’t a babe in the woods; I would know if Sol was playing me, and he wasn’t. . . .
He wasn’t.
Arvo shook his head. “A little chloroform, Biba. There are plenty of secret spaces in these mountains. He could chain you up, leave you naked in the cold, torture you. . . .”
He was fucking with me, and it was starting to work. My voice was stuck somewhere deep inside me, and I couldn’t free it. So I stood up and fled feebly to one of the shadowy nooks between two bookshelves. I faced the wall, hiding the pain and terror I could no longer keep from my face.
“Of course,” he continued, pursuing me, “it wouldn’t be so hard to neutralize Stamos before he could do any of that.”
“What do you mean?” I whimpered, feeling him closing in on me.
“You know.”
“If you want to do that, then just do it.”
“I have a hundred reasons to put Sol Stamos’s light out,” he whispered, “but I’ll only do it if you give the word.”
“What the hell, Arvo? I can’t make that decision.”
“It’s you or him. Zephyr will be pissed when he returns. I can take the heat, but I need to know it’s what you want.”
How could I even answer the question? The answer would mean the end of Sol’s life, and that would be on my conscience forever.
I felt Arvo’s hands resting on my shoulders, and then his fingertips delicately traced the silhouette of my back. They slid past my waist and took hold of my hips.
“I’m not a bad man, Biba,” he breathed in my ear. “It’s just, I can do what must be done. I’ll do it for you. I want to keep you safe.”
The middle and ring fingers of his right hand slid down the front of my jeans and into my panties, following the curve of my pelvis. His fingertips rested lazily on my pubis, barely an inch from my clit. I shivered at the sensation. What I wouldn’t give for him go just a bit lower.
“Not for Z,” he groaned. “I’ll do anything for you.”
I was instantly soaked.
There was something almost robotic about it, like Arvo was calibrated to elicit the most pleasure with the slightest stimulation. He applied the tiniest pressure, and I cooed in delight.
“That feels nice,” I groaned, adding, “you prick.”
I turned, took his perfect, smooth face in my hands, and pulled him to me. Our tongues danced and twirled around each other. I tried to pull myself close to him, but he wouldn’t have it. In an instant, my back was against the wall. He unbuttoned my jeans and took my soaked pussy in his hand. He pressed me tightly against the wall and delicately fingered my swollen bud.
“You're so wet,” he marveled. “I can’t wait to taste you.”
“God, yes,” I groaned, closing my eyes and returning to that state of abandon I’d experienced in the pool days ago. This time, I wanted to go all the way.
“Feel how fucking hard you make me.”